THE ear-bashings have begun. Several of my colleagues who patrol the front lines of local politics with notebooks and ballpoints at the ready report that as the May elections draw near we are being accused of favouritism.

So let's get one thing clear right away. We do not hold a candle for any party. We do not report what one lot are up to at the expense of another mob.

We will strive to report fairly in our news columns what our polls are doing and what they are saying, though you must allow us the freedom to sound off as hot and strong as we like in our Opinion columns, which are clearly labelled as our own views.

Of course, the big news story will always get the big treatment. A sensational U-turn on policy will merit a big headline whereas a plea for a new lamp-post almost certainly won't. That is not bias - that is what news is all about and we won't be suspending news values for the duration.

Iknow there are lot of hot potatoes sizzling at the moment - incinerator plans, where to build a stadium for Brighton and Hove Albion, hundreds of proposed new homes in West Sussex, etc. So as election day approaches I expect the mini-spin doctors to be revolving at full speed to grab their men and women as much ink as possible.

Our fax machines will whirr non-stop but if it ain't newsy, chaps, don't be surprised if it ends up on the spike.

As my colleague Adam Trimingham says in his sage way, since we are often accused of favouritism by all three main parties at once, we are probably getting it about right.

And don't forget, on the morning after polling day you will be able to see who made the best impressions at the hustings when we publish our election special editions.

One further point, we will not allow the politicians to use our letters pages for inter-party slanging matches. Those pages will, of course, continue to be a genuine place for readers with valid points of view to have their say.

TALKING about the letters pages, we inadvertently cut a letter from Duncan Hunt of Brighton. He praised our positive coverage of the visit by murdered Stephen Lawrence's father Neville to Brighton but we should have let Mr Hunt make the point that we must all fight racism, including that currently being directed at refugees and asylum-seekers.

We were also a bit swift with the blue pencil on a letter about the West Pier from Allan Richards of Portslade. We printed his comments that the cash proposed for the pier's restoration would be better used for humanitarian purposes but sliced off his remark that a restored pier would be a monument to heartlessness. Did we cut out his punchline to avoid offending the sensibilities of Chris Eubank who wants to restore the pier, asks Mr Richards. No, just for space reasons, and so it's over to you, Chris!

FINALLY, my apologies to crossword fans among you who had a sense of deja vu in Monday's AM edition. Yes, we repeated the crossword from Friday. Simple human error, I'm afraid. Our mistake was corrected for all subsequent editions and I sorry that some of you missed your daily fix of two-across and nine-down.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.